Ahead of March’s South Australian election, I’ve prepared a publication summarising the results of the last South Australian election in 2022.
The publication includes a summary of all House of Assembly results including primary, two-candidate and two-party preferred votes, percentages and swings by district. There are also summary statistics across districts for swing, and results for Adelaide versus the rest of the state. There’s a summary of the 2020/21 redistribution as well as details of changes in Assembly and Council membership.
The publications includes detailed analysis of two-candidate preference flow data by candidate by district as well as two-party flows for the six districts that did not finish as two-party contests. The preferences section also includes aggregated preferences by district by party. All tables include reference to which candidate/party was favoured by each excluded candidate’s how-to-vote recommendation.
Finally there is detail of the Legislative Council election with tables summarised by party and by candidate. The section includes a break down by party of how many voters cast a single “1” above the line vote, and how many used the new ATL preferencing option. A summary of the preference distribution is included along with details of the Council result by each Assembly district. There’s also a summary table comparing party percentages in the Assembly and the Council.
The publication is rounded out with regional outline maps of the electoral boundaries used for the 2022 election, and there are some tables of historic SA election results.
You can find my 2022 South Australian Election results publication at this link.
Inside the post I’ve included the statistical summary from the front of the publication.
Statistical Summary
The 2022 South Australia election produced a change of government with the Liberal administration of Premier Steven Marshall defeated after a single term in office. Over its four years the government faced several political scandals, and several government members became Independents and moved to the cross bench. Three former Liberals contested their seats in 2022 as Independents and two were re-elected. The Marshall government effectively needed to gain seats to retain office in 2022.
By far the biggest issue faced by the Marshall government was the two-year fight against Covid19. The government was forced to manage the economy with state borders closed and social restrictions in place. While the emergency period was lifted at the end of 2021, a surge in Covid cases in early 2022 worsened ambulance ramping problems in hospital emergency departments and damaged the government’s re-election campaign.
Of the nine Opposition Leaders in jurisdictions across Australia in early 2020, only South Australian Labor Leader Peter Malinauskas and Federal Labor Leader Anthony Albanese still led their parties at the start of 2022. Both Malinauskas and Albanese would lead their parties to election victories in the first half of 2022.
The two-party preferred swing at the 2022 election was 6.5% against the Liberal government. Labor recorded 54.6% of the two-party preferred vote, Labor’s best result since the Rann government’s landslide re-election in 2006, and Labor’s second highest two-party vote since the reform of electoral boundaries in 1970. Despite forming government after 12 of the 16 elections since 1970, it was only the seventh election at which Labor recorded a majority of the two-party preferred vote. (See two-party referred results in publication page 19, and election results since 1970 page 62)
Labor polled 39.97% of the first preference vote, up 7.16% since 2018. This was the highest Labor primary vote since 2006, and along with 2006, only the second time at nine elections since 1989 where Labor recorded a higher first preference vote than the Liberal Party.
The previous election in 2018 had been notable for a new entrant to the Assembly contest in Nick Xenophon’s SA Best. While the party won no lower house seats, it finished second after preferences in 12 districts and polled 14.2% of the Assembly vote. SA Best contested only one seat in 2022 causing its vote share to decline -14.0%. This vote distributed to other parties with Labor’s vote share rising +7.2%, the Greens +2.5%, Independent support doubled to 7.3%, a revived Family First recorded 3.7%, and Pauline Hanson’s One Nation polled 2.6% at its first Assembly election since 2006. The only other party to record a decline in support was the governing Liberal Party, down 2.3%. (See Assembly first preference summary in publication page 5.)
Labor elected 27 members, the Liberal Party 16 and there were four Independents. Twelve seats can be classed as changing party at the 2022 election. The Liberal Party lost 10 seats in 2022 compared to 2018, seven to Labor (Adelaide, Davenport, Elder, Gibson, King, Newland, Waite), and three to Independents. Independent MHA for Frome Geoff Brock switched seat and won Stuart from the Liberal Party, and former Liberals were re-elected as Independents in Kavel and Narungga. The Liberal Party gained Frome following Brock’s switch of seat, and Labor won Florey after Independent Frances Bedford chose to contest another seat. (See seat change details in publication page 5.)
The 47 House of Assembly districts attracted 240 candidates, down from 264 candidates in 2018 but higher than 204 in 2014 when a higher nomination deposit applied. The record number of Assembly candidates was 302 in 2002. The average candidates per contest was 5.1 in 2022, 5.6 in 2018, 4.3 in 2014 with the record 6.5 per district in 2002.
35 of the 47 House of Assembly members were re-elected, 18 Labor, 13 Liberal and four Independents including two ex-Liberals. Nine members were defeated, seven Liberals, former Liberal Sam Duluk and Independent Frances Bedford. Two Labor and one Liberal member retired. There were nine new Labor members and three new Liberals. (See membership changes in publication page 28.)
Of the 47 seats, 26 were won on first preferences, 17 Labor, eight Liberal and one Independent. 21 seats were decided after preference, 18 after full distributions while three required only partial distributions. Labor won 10 seats on preferences including Davenport and Gibson where Labor had trailed on first preferences. The Liberal Party won eight seats after the distribution of preferences and Independents three.
Just under a quarter of Assembly votes were cast for minor party and independent candidates. Of third party and independent votes, 60.1% flowed to Labor as preferences and 39.9% to the Liberal Party. Breaking down the flows to Labor for the larger parties, Greens preferences flowed 81.2% to Labor, Family First 47.4% and One Nation 46.8. Independent preferences flowed 47.1% to Labor. Labor, Greens and minor party preferences heavily favoured Labor in Liberal-Independent contests. (See preference summaries by district and party in publication from page 30.)
The near disappearance of Nick Xenophon’s SA Best caused big shifts in Legislative Council primary vote. SA-Best’s support fell 18.3% causing increases for all other parties. Labor Party support rose +8.0%, the Liberal Party +2.1%, Greens +3.2%, One Nation polled 4.2% at its first election since 2006, and Legalise Cannabis polled 2.1% at its first election.
Labor polled 35.96%, 4.44 quotas and elected five MLCs, an increase of one compared to when members were last elected in 2014. The Liberal Party polled 34.38%, 4.13 quotas, electing four members. One of the four Liberal MLCs re-elected in 2022 was Dennis Hood who had been elected for Family First in 2006 and 2014 before joining the Liberal Party after the 2018 election. The Greens retained its seat won in 2014 and One Nation elected the party’s first South Australian MLC. Former Nick Xenophon Team MLC John Darley, elected in 2014, was defeated in 2022 for his new party, Advance SA. Two elected Liberal MLCs retired at the election. (See summary of Legislative Council results in publication page 43.)
The new Legislative Council consisted of nine Labor members, eight Liberals, two Greens, a single One Nation member and two Nick Xenophon SA Best members elected in 2018.
The Legislative Council election saw 62.6% of ballot papers completed with a single ‘1’ above the line with another 31.3% voting above-the-line and indicating preferences. Below the line votes were completed by 6.1% of voters. The Greens had both the lowest proportion of 1-only ATL votes (42.7%) and the highest proportion of ATL votes with preferences (44.6%) (See summary of Legislative Council results page 43.)
The number of enrolled electors increased to 1,266,719, up 64,944 and a rise of 5.4% since 2018. Turnout for the Legislative Council was 89.18%, down 1.96 percentage points. Turnout for the House of Assembly was 89.02%, down 1.98 percentage points compared to 2018.
The first nine MLCs were elected by filled quotas on first preferences, four Labor, four Liberal and one Green. The final two seats were filled by fifth Labor candidate Russell Wortley and One Nation’s Sarah Game. With 1.57 quotas worth of votes having exhausted preferences, both were declared elected with less thana quota of votes. Overall, 76.0% of votes from excluded candidates exhausted during the distribution of preferences, 12.9% flowed to Labor and 10.6% to One Nation. (See summary of Legislative Council preference distribution from page 48.)